ه‍.ش. ۱۳۹۰ آبان ۱۴, شنبه

(Washington) – A former U.S. secretary rejected claims by Iranian officials that Occupy Wall Street protests reflect a serious crisis that will reach to an end of the capitalism in the Unites States, saying the American capitalism is strong enough to rebalance itself.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, earlier in October, termed the anti-Wall Street protests a “reflection of serious crises in the U.S.” and predicted: "it will eventually grow so that it will bring down the capitalist system and the West."

The Occupy Wall Street movement started in New York City in September protests at the power of the financial and political sectors. It was not only spreading to other parts of the U.S. but also inspired anti-corporate activists to camp out in other countries.

“This is not the end of the U.S. capitalism,” said the former Labor secretary Robert Reich in an interview with Horizon, a Voice of America’s Persian language television program, admitting the U.S. capitalism sometimes gets out of balance.

Stressing on resilience of American economy, Reich noted “the United States does and has tendency, as we have seen it over the last 120 years, to rebalance itself.”

Khamenei, in a speech in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah, claimed the West’s capitalism has reached a dead-end and said "the world is at a historical turn."

Earlier in October, the UC Berkeley professor in an address to the Occupy SF encampment at Justin Herman Plaza encouraged the protestors to "make so much of a ruckus - nonviolently - that Washington can't help but pay attention."

Experts attribute the protests' growth to tactics learned from the popular uprisings in the Middle East called “Arab Spring” that have toppled autocratic regimes in the Arab world. Iranian top officials cheerfully compare the anti-Wall Street movement to those protests naming it “America Spring”.

“Certainly the Occupy Wall Street protestors, at least some, have said that this has been inspired by Arab spring … but that’s where the similarity ends,” Ilan Berman, the Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council, said.

“This isn’t a movement that is going to bring down the government … it is certainly not looking for the type of dramatically change that the protestors in the Middles East are seeking,” Berman said.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are part of a loosely organized movement protesting corporate greed, economic inequality and high unemployment.

Addressing in Washington at the dedication of the monument to slain American civil rights leader on October 16, President Barack Obama acknowledged the movement by invoking the name of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.